


Homeful

by woodenducks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Barista Dean, Fluff, Homeless Castiel, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 04:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8432251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodenducks/pseuds/woodenducks
Summary: There’s a new guy in the tent city across the road from Dean's cafe. He's got dark scruffy hair and a blue NASA tshirt that looks a bit worse for wear. He has a nice smile. Dean looks at him and thinks that his smile looks like warmth.
  In which Dean Winchester develops a crush and frequently wants the earth to open up and swallow him whole.





	

It’s Wednesday, and Dean is late opening up the café. He’s been in the kitchen prepping bagels for the lunch rush, and Charlie is late to open the till, so he already has a queue about five deep by the front door when he goes out to open for the morning.

Dean opened Mean Beanz about twelve months ago, and he’s damn proud of the place. He’s got a reputation for having the best coffee on the block, and the best muffins. Even though he will go to his grave keeping the fact that he’s the baker a secret. A man needs a little mystery.

Pushing open the front door, he apologises to his regulars for the delay, smiling as they shuffle inside. Before he lets the door swing shut again, he looks over to the tent city over the road in the park under a bridge. Well, it’s not really a city, maybe there are only five or six tents, but there are at least a dozen rough sleepers Dean’s seen at any one time when he’s packing up at night. He sees them come and go, but knows a couple of their names, because they’ve been there as a group for a while, and he likes to know his neighbours. He often heads over with sandwiches and coffee and the end of the day rather than throwing leftover food away.

Dean wishes there were more he could do for the community over there, but he does what he can.

Just as he lets the door drop shut, a small hand reaches out to stop it from closing.

“Hold the door, boss!” Charlie grins at him from beneath her mass of red hair.

“You’re late, Charles,” he says, feigning ire.

She ducks under the arm he’s got blocking the doorway. “Well, Jesus, Dean. Don’t make me even later, then.” She slips behind the counter, grabbing an apron and starts taking orders.

Dean’s lucky to have her working here, and she knows it.

 

 

On Thursday morning, Dean’s restocking the beans when Charlie comes in to start her shift.

“Dean, give me your phone,” she says, holding out an impatient hand.

“Good morning to you too, Charlie.” Dean heads into the back kitchen to grab some new beans for the counter. Charlie follows him.

“Seriously, Dean. I just realised that it has been eight months since you’ve been on a date.”

Dean grabs the beans and skirts around Charlie, heading back out to the counter where the grinder is. He puts the bag of beans on the counter, and crosses his arms. “What, have you been reading my diary again?”

Charlie rolls her eyes. “Come _on_ , Dean. You need to get laid. Now give me your phone, I’m gonna install Grinder.”

Dean instinctively lays a protective hand over the phone in his pocket.

“Nope, no, now way, Charlie. I am fine.”

“Dean, this is unhealthy!” Charlie shouts, making a lunging grab for his pants pocket.

“Christ, Charlie! It’s fine, just forget about it. I don’t want it, okay?”

“Don’t want…sex with hot men?” Charlie asks, stopping and staring at him innocently.

“No, of course I want that,” Dean scoffs. “We all want that—present company excluded,” he adds at the disgusted twist to Charlie’s mouth. “But not like that. I don’t want a hook-up app, Charlie. I don’t even really think I want a hook-up.”

“Oh, Dean,” she says, her face softening and her eyes glittering with big, bright unicorn tears. “You want to fall in love. You’re like a Disney princess!”

Dean thinks at this point it’s just safer to walk away.

He heads into the kitchen, pulling out trays of now-cooled muffins he’d baked that morning and getting ready to put them in the display cabinet.

It’s not that he’s mad at Charlie, he’s just really tired of talking about his love-life. And maybe he is ready to fall in love, and that’s a bit embarrassing. It’s just that his last boyfriend, Benny, really broke his heart, and he doesn’t feel like casual hook-ups are the right thing. Anymore. You know, after the first month or so of relentless, pounding rebound sex.

He heads back into the café. Charlie is stacking cups, ready for the morning rush. He peers out the window and looks over at the tent city over the road. He can see a few people he knows over there: Manny, the sort of camp leader, is talking to El and Leigh, a couple of younger rough sleepers who barely look old enough to be out of high school. Dean makes a mental note to head over with some more food this afternoon.

There’s a new guy in the camp, with dark scruffy hair and a blue NASA tshirt that looks a bit worse for wear. Dean sees him lay a hand on El’s shoulder, and smile and something she says. He has a nice smile. Dean looks at him and thinks that his smile looks like warmth.

 

 

There was no sign of the man on Friday. Not that Dean’s been looking. He’s finishing up for the day, lugging a bag of empty cups and grounds to the trash can behind the building, when his brother Sam calls, wanting to talk about Dean’s plans for summer, and can he please just take a plane this time, it’s too far to drive all the way to California just for a week of vacation. Dean says he’ll think about it.

“Hey, speaking of thinking,” Sam says. “ _I’ve_ been thinking—”

“That is a terrible segue, Sammy.”

“—that you should really try and meet someone again.”

Dean groans. “Not this again, Sam. Please, I’m fine.”

“It’s just been months since you broke up with Benny, and maybe you should think about…being happy, you know?”

Dean tries very hard to fight the urge to crush his phone into a tiny brick. “Yeah, yeah, Sammy. I’m _fine_. I’m _happy_ , and I’m perfectly fulfilled. I don’t need—” His eye catches movement over the road among the tents. It’s the new guy, shaking out his bedroll and securing himself a space near one of the bridge pylons. Dean watches as the man laughs at something an older woman is saying. He feels something pang inside him at the man’s easy smile, teeth white among his stubbled face.

“You don’t need—what, Dean?” Sammy interrupts.

“Nothing,” Dean says, throwing the bag of trash into the bin. “I’ll call you later, Sammy.”

Dean hangs up, tries not to stare over the road, not wanting to give the wrong impression. He doesn’t want anyone to think that he’s gawping, or staring disdainfully. So he heads round to the car park, gets in the Impala, and drives home. It’s not cold, it’s barely the end of summer, but the car’s leather seats feel cool and empty around him.

 

 

Dean doesn’t see the man again for a few days. Maybe a week. Okay, six days. Dean’s not counting, but he hasn’t seen the guy in six days. He thinks maybe Charlie’s starting to get suspicious about the amount of time Dean spends staring out the front windows at the group over the road. If she tries to call him on it, though, he just threatens to loudly cockblock her every time a hot woman comes into the café.

“It’s not cockblocking if there’s no cock, Dean,” Charlie says.

“Well, what’s it called then?”

Charlie stops and thinks for a second. “Clam jam, Dean. You are being a clam jam.”

Dean makes a face. “That is truly horrible.”

Charlie shrugs. “Eh. Take back the night.”

It’s getting quiet, late in the afternoon, so Dean starts removing leftover bagels and muffins from the display cabinet to take over the road.  
“You want me to run those over, boss?” Charlie asks.

“Nah, ‘sall good. I got it,” he replies, balancing two armloads of food and trying to navigate his way to the front door. Charlie sighs at his stubbornness and runs over to open the door for him. She waves him through with a little bow.

Dean checks for traffic before crossing the road to the tent city.

“Dean-o!” calls Manny, giving him a casual two-fingered wave. Dean grins, handing over the bags of food.

“Bagels, cream cheese, chicken salad, and raspberry muffins,” he says, counting them off as he passes them to Manny.

“Thanks, man. You’re good people, Dean,” Manny says. Dean waves him off. “Man’s gotta eat, right? It’s not a problem.”

Manny starts to distribute the food to some of the other people in the camp. Dean doesn’t recognise all of them, but he waves hello to Sheila and Lou, two women who’ve been at the camp for the last month.

“Hey,” Dean says. “Got any new faces?”

Manny nods. “You know how it is, man. We try and make this a safe space. But people are gonna come and go.”

“Yeah, I thought I’d seen a couple of people I didn’t recognise lately,” Dean says. _Subtle, be subtle_ , he thinks. “Who’s that new guy I saw a little while ago? Blue shirt, good beard?”

Manny smiles at him, and Dean is _not_ gonna even entertain the idea of a knowing twinkle in anyone’s eyes. “Oh yeah, you mean Cas?” he asks.

“Maybe.”

“Dark hair, slept here maybe…Tuesday?”

“Yeah, that sounds like him,” Dean says.

“What did you wanna know?” asks Manny.

“Oh!” Dean tries his very hardest to be nonchalant. “Oh, nothing. Really. Just, you know. Getting to know the neighbours.”

Manny nods. “Yeah, Cas is cool. He should be back soon, I think he said he’d drop by again tomorrow.”

“Coo-ool,” Dean drags out. “Well. I’m gonna get back in and…you know. Make sure Charlie hasn’t broken anything?” Manny laughs and waves him off. Dean awkwardly waves goodbye and heads back over the road, trying not to fall into a pothole or do anything else remotely embarrassing.

He’s got a name at least. _Cas._

 

 

Cas very much is back the next day, and Dean tries _very_ hard, really, honestly, not to stare at him all afternoon. He’s moving around the camp, talking to people, helping a new woman Dean doesn’t recognise rig up a tarp over her sleeping area. Dean’s almost definitely pining.

“You’re pining,” says Charlie. Busted.

“Nope, not,” says Dean. He knows that he’s lying, and he knows that _Charlie_ knows he’s lying, because she’s been watching him stare longingly out the window for days now, and Dean is also kinda worried that she saw him doodling Cas’s name on a napkin the other day.

“Just go and talk to him,” she says.

“Charlie, I can’t. What am I gonna say?”

“I don’t know, Dean, geez. What do people usually say when they go up and start a conversation with someone they’re attracted to?” Charlie’s leaning one hip against the counter, staring at Dean like he’s a complete idiot.

“In your case, you’d probably offer to show them your delicately located Princess Leia tattoo and just let things run their natural course from there.” _Nice, yes. Turned that one back around._

Charlie jabs him in the side.

“Go. Talk to him. And if you’re feeling like you don’t know how to start, you can always begin with _your_ delicately located Han Solo tattoo.”

“Charlie! That’s private!” Dean shouts, and takes after her as she runs, cackling, into the kitchen.

 

 

Eventually, Dean does dig up the courage to go and talk to Cas, but he waits until the last possible minute, when Cas is crossing the road towards the shop after Dean’s seen him wave goodbye to the other people at the camp.

Part of him wants to call Charlie over so that he doesn’t have to deal with this alone. But what does he expect? Is he waiting for her to hold his hand as he takes wobbly, baby-bird steps towards talking to another human being? Dean tries to make his face resolute, pulls open the front door, and steps out to smoothly intercept Cas.

Except speaking of wobbly steps, Dean seems to somehow forget that there is a step from the front of the café down onto the street, and he trips, arms pinwheeling in a way that he really hopes isn’t as uncoordinated as it feels, and falls hard on his knee, palms scraping the sidewalk.

Jesus _Christ_ that hurts.

He hears hurried footsteps and then there’s a strong hand gripping around his arm, helping to haul him to his feet. Dean looks up into blue eyes that are kinda squinty with concern, and wants a hole to open up in the earth and swallow him. There’s a manhole in the middle of the road about thirty yards away, he recalls. Maybe he can just walk up there, pry it open, and pitch himself into the sewer.

“Are you okay?” Cas asks. His voice is gravelly, and, speaking of, Dean’s pretty certain there’s a piece of gravel wedged into his knee from his fall. He looks down. Yep, ripped his jeans, and—oh, great, it’s starting to bleed. His palms sting, and he unfolds them and looks. Okay, great. So, there’s a cute guy, whatever, and Dean fell on his ass (well, knee) and is now bleeding from at least three places, and this really wasn’t the impression he wanted to give.

Cas looks pretty worried at this point.

“Oh! Yeah, I’m—” Dean flexes his hands, and bites back a hiss at the sting. “Mother _fucker_!”

Cas steps back, forehead creasing.

“I mean, no! I’m not…motherfu—ummm, I’m fine! Just fine. Just…bleeding?”

Dean’s really looking forward to cracking that manhole open. He hopes the sewer people take him in kindly.

“Look, hang here,” says Cas. “I’ve got some first aid stuff somewhere, let me help you out.”

Dean feels utterly mortified.

“No, man, really. It’s fine. My shop,” he gestures at the traitorous café door behind him. “We’ve got…plasters. You know. Neosporin. I’ll. Yeah.”

At this point he is actually backing away from Cas, even though his knee is starting to scream with every awkward shuffle.

“Dean, wait—“

Dean doesn’t wait. He doesn’t even stop to be a bit surprised that Cas knows his name. He pushes the door open with his shoulder and barges past Charlie, her face a mixture of awe and horror and something that he thinks is her trying very hard not to laugh. He heads back into the bathroom and runs the taps. It’s gonna sting, but it can’t be much worse than the crippling pain of complete humiliation he just faced.

 

 

Cas is back the next morning, and Dean’s kind of surprised. He knocks on the door before pushing it open and walking into the shop, kind of making a big deal of stepping carefully up and over the threshold.

Dean tries a winning smile, thanking whatever higher powers that it was too early in the morning for Charlie to be in and embarrass him.

“Cas,” he says. _Yep, that’s the guy’s name, good work._

Cas smiles, and Dean’s pretty sure that the room gets a bit brighter.

“Hello, Dean. How’s the hands?”

“Oh, you know,” Dean says, flexing his fingers. “Fighting fit. Ready to face the day.”

Cas hums. “That was quite the fall. I have to… _hand_ it to you.” He grins a bit, and Dean doesn’t even try and fight a smile in return, because that wasn’t even a good joke, god damn it, but he is pretty gone here.

“Hey, how did you know my name?” he asks, remembering that he and Cas have never actually introduced themselves to one another.

“Everyone knows you, Dean,” Cas says, and somehow it doesn’t sound creepy. “You have a wonderful reputation over the road. People speak very highly of you.”

Dean definitely does not feel the tips of his ears glow red-hot. He is cool as a cucumber. In fact, that is his middle name. Dean Cucumber Winchester. _Ugh, just stop yourself now._

“What can I get for you?” Dean asks, remembering that he’s running a café here, and Cas probably wants a coffee, not just to stand there while Dean’s inner monologue goes to weird places.

“A latte, please,” says Cas, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

“Hey, no!” says Dean. “None of that. On the house.”

“Dean, I can pay for a coffee, it’s more than fine,” Cas says, looking a bit confused. Adorably. _Not_ _adorable, get it together_.

“Nope, free for friends who help me up off my ass when I’ve stacked it that bad.”

Cas smiles, nods. Dean gets behind the espresso machine and prays that he doesn’t set it on fire or anything else impossible but unlucky and therefore probable.

While Dean’s making the coffee, he sees Cas head over to the book swap shelf near the comfy couches. Cas thumbs over the spines, tilting his head to look at the titles.

“One latte, on the house.” Dean announces, pouring the last of the milk into the cardboard cup.

Cas comes back to the counter, gesturing at the bookshelf. “You’ve got some great stuff there. Some real favourites.”

“Yeah? You can borrow whatever you want.”

Cas smiles, reaches out for his coffee. “Maybe I will sometime.”

Dean hands over the cup, tries not to have an aneurysm when his fingers brush against Cas’s. Christ, it’s like he’s burning up, here. _Stop blushing, Winchester, for crying out loud. You are the opposite of cool._

“Thank you for this, Dean,” says Cas.

“Oh. You—you’re welcome. You know. Any time? If you want to have coffee.”

Cas grins.

“You know, we make it here! We sure do,” Dean is babbling now. This is going so well. “Yes, so. We make coffee. Well, I make coffee. If you want to have coffee. With me? You can do it…here. Yes.”

Wow, this is embarrassing.

Thankfully Cas saves him. “I would like to have coffee with you, Dean. Why don’t I come back tomorrow, around 5?”

Dean nods, sort of gapes.

“Okay, then,” says Cas. “See you tomorrow, Dean.” He smiles and pulls the door open and walks back out onto the street. Dean’s not quite sure what happened. Is this a date? Is Cas coming back for a date?

Dean runs the conversation back in his head, cringing at the most awkward parts. Oh shit, it’s almost definitely a date.

 

 

Cas does come back the next day, and Dean somehow remembers to breathe when he steps into the door, blue hoodie looking warm and rumpled. He smiles as he approaches the counter. Dean can practically feel Charlie vibrating with excitement beside him.

“Hey, Cas,” he says, giving a little wave. _Terrible. Why did you wave?_ “Let me get these coffees together. Take a seat.”

“Anywhere?” Cas asks. It’s late, getting near closing, so the place is almost empty.

“Get the comfy couch,” Charlie hisses. Dean knows that she’s referring to the floral loveseat at the back of the café that has a busted spring, so the seats sink in towards the middle and when two people are sitting on it, they end up inevitably squished together. Dean kicks her swiftly on the ankle. She glares at him.

“Yeah, wherever, man. I’ll be right over,” he says.

Cas does not, to Charlie’s disappointment, choose the floral loveseat, but instead slides into one of two worn green armchairs around a small coffee table.

Dean grabs the coffee and heads over, plonking down in the other chair.

“So,” he starts. God, what next? He can’t just say ‘come here often?’, because that would be the actual worst.

Cas saves him by gesturing to the photo of Dean and Sammy that he keeps pinned behind the counter. In the picture, Sam’s leaning his giant body over the counter, handing Dean a five dollar bill with one hand, and reaching out to grab a coffee with the other. “I like that photo, Dean. Who’s that there with you?”

Dean smiles. This he can talk about, easy. “That’s Sammy, my giant baby bro. First customer we ever served here, so there’s the photo commemorating it.”

“That’s great, Dean. He must be very supportive. Does he live in Kansas, too?”

“Nah,” says Dean. “He lives in California with his lovely wife. He can be annoying as hell, but I really miss him sometimes. Most of the time.”

Cas nods, something subdued in his eyes.

“You got brothers and sisters, Cas?” Dean asks.

“Three brothers, all in the corporate world,” he answers, smiling a bit tiredly. “I didn’t always have the best relationship with my family. They were…different from me. A bit more interested in money, and bit more disparaging of my interest in humanitarian and community work. When I joined the clergy, it was the last straw for my brother Luke. Turning my back on the family business, the family legacy, et cetera. I was posted here in Kansas City six months ago, and here we are.” Cas looks back up from where he was tracing his thumb around the edge of his coffee cup.

Dean is trying _really_ hard not to gawp.

“Clergy?” he whispers.

“Yes, of course. I’m a priest. Part of my work in the community is supporting the rough sleepers in the city—” Realisation dawns on Cas’s face.

“Dean,” he says, pointedly. “Dean, did you think I was homeless?”

Dean sputters. “No-oo? Yes? Yes. A bit.”

Cas raises an eyebrow.

“What?! You’re always over at the tent city, hanging out. You sleep over there!”

“I’m connecting with the community and showing my solidarity,” Cas says, with the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

Dean laughs, running his palms over his face. “Oh, boy. Oh, brother. Well, there’s not really a good way out of this, is there? Now I’m on a date with a priest. Amazing.”

Cas looks a bit taken aback. “I didn’t know this was a date, Dean.”

“Well,” Dean says, cheeks burning the most ungodly—nope—unholy— _nope_ —unfortunate shade of red. “This is probably the most embarrassing thing that’s every happened to me.”

Cas has the audacity to smile at him. “Dean,” he says gently. “Please don’t be embarrassed.”

Dean laughs weakly. “Yep, that is never, ever going to happen.” He is going to carry this one to the grave, should he not spontaneously burst into flame right on the spot. He mentally counts the steps to the manhole in the street, ready again to fling himself in.

“Would it make a difference,” Cas says, slowly, “if I wanted it to be a date?”

Dean’s head whips up. “Huh?”

“A date, Dean. Is that okay if this keeps being one? I do find you very attractive.”

“But,” Dean splutters. “But— _priest_.” The word comes out as almost a hiss, so great, now he sounds like some sort of priest-hating Satanist. “You, priest. And I—I’m a man.”

“Yes,” says Cas, sounding amused. “I had noticed. That’s probably one of the first things I noticed about you: that you were a man. An incredibly kind man, but, yes, a man.”

Dean feels like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown. “Is that not…I don’t know, forbidden fruit?”

Cas outright laughs. “I’m a priest, Dean, not a monk. The church has changed. Well, some parts of it. We are as God made us. Although, points to you for the Bible reference.”

Dean feels a bit shell-shocked.

“You look a bit shell-shocked,” says Cas. “Look, I know that maybe a man of God is not at the top of a lot of peoples’ lists of ideal partners. But, I like you. I’d like to get to know you better. If you’d be amenable.”

Dean nods, recovering himself slightly. “Yes. Okay. Yes. I’d like that.”

Cas smiles, reaches over the table and lays his hand over Dean’s. Dean immediately wants to turn his hand over and lace their fingers together. Cas’s hand is big and warm and solid.

“Cas,” he asks. “I’m not gonna…go to hell for this, am I?”

Cas rolls his eyes. “No, Dean. We’re just two people that are having coffee and are interested in each other. Nothing hell-bound there.”

“Okay. No hell.” He slots his fingers between Cas’s, squeezing slightly. “What now?”

“Now, I imagine, we’ve got a lot to learn about one another,” Cas says, squeezing back. “If you can be patient with me.”

Dean smiles. For Cas, he can wait.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://bsc-trash.tumblr.com/), where I pretty much just reblog Dean Winchester gifs and write smutty drabbles.


End file.
